German Students Do Own 'Snow White'

March 31, 1988|by MELANIE DEVAULT, The Morning Call

It was a three-week study of "Schneewittchen" - complete with the konigin and the prinz and the seven zwerge - that culminated recently with high school students acting up a storm, and grade schoolers loving it.

Vignettes of "Schneewittchen" ("SnowWhite" in German), with the konigin (evil queen), prinz (prince) and seven dwarfs, of course, were written by fourth level German students in Chris Torchia's class at Emmaus High School.

The students then translated their sketches into German, wrote the script for a play with Torchia's help, practiced their lines, made their costumes and performed the play for elementary students in East Penn's Wescosville and Lower Macungie schools.

Torchia, who said she started the exercise three years ago with her German 4 class to help her seniors through "second semester senioritis," found it worked extremely well for the high school students. They had fun while writing, reading and orally expressing the language.

But it has proven equally successful for elementary students for whom the play is performed. "The younger kids enjoy it and I think it promotes interest in foreign language," Torchia, who also teaches Spanish at Emmaus Junior High, said.

Wescosville and Lower Macungie Principal Margaret Geosits agreed whole- heartedly. "The children responded very, very positively to the whole experience," she commented.

"They can see language as fun and not as the esoteric kind of study they may have pictured it. At the primary age, they are still very uninhibited and have the facility for appreciating this," she added.

Dr. Geosits said that having the older students present the play in German "represents our way to expose the younger children to another culture through a spoken language." She added that this kind of activity is also very effective in bridging the gap between high school and elementary students.

Torchia said she is startled each year by how attentive the elementary students are. "It's so amazing. Here is a story they know in another language. I think they are fascinated by it," she commented.

She said this year she had several good actors and actresses in her class, students who have been involved in high school plays, which helped matters.

Still, there were the last-minute problems: the original Snow White couldn't perform so another had to learn the lines. The original narrator broke her ankle.

All in all, things turned out just fine, student director Donna Winzer agreed. "We still use a lot of the funny lines from the play," she kidded, "like when I see my sister and say in German 'you're a big potato head.' "

Nita Helfrich (the substitute Snow White) said the exercise was great. "We never got to use German outside the classroom and this gave us that opportunity. It was educational because we got to write it out and say it to others and we got feedback."

She said she and other characters talked to the younger children after the play, asking them if they knew who the good and bad characters were. "They said they could tell from the acting. Most of the kids liked it when the witch killed Snow White and we said, okay, fine.

"The interaction was great. One boy asked me if I was married and I told him in the story, yes, and in real life, not yet," she added, laughing. "They look up to you and they're interested in this facet, language, now."

Jason McMahan (the prince) said the study helped them attain a better fluency in German. "It was a good idea and a good promotion for language classes," he said.

"When I wasn't on stage," commented Michelle Labaty (the evil queen) I watched the kids and they loved it! They all said afterward they wanted to take German.

Michele Binner (the narrator) said she feels that the project brought the class closer together. "It was a lot of hard work and it forced us to work closer together. It forced us to put thoughts together, too. You can't just translate word to word," she explained.

She said learning the lines, the word order, was a challenge, and while the youngsters didn't understand what they were saying, she and her classmates wanted to get it right.

Binner said she could tell the youngsters were enjoying the performance by the laughs and boos. "When the prince bent down to kiss Snow White there was a big 'yuck,' " she said laughing.

That may change by high school, she agreed. But the desire to take a language may just stay, thanks to this unique presentation.